Launching our second new feature of the year, we’re going to celebrate the flip-sides to some famous chart-toppers. In my posts on every UK #1 between 1952 and 1999, I’ve stuck fairly rigidly to reviewing just one side of each chart-topping disc. On occasion I may have mentioned them in passing, and I’ve always given them a spin if they’re listed as a double-‘A’; but by and large I’ve avoided the B-sides.

To be honest, I was born at the tail end of the B-side era, so sometimes overlook their importance. By the mid-to-late-nineties, when I started buying music, the bonus tracks on a CD or cassette single were often just remixes of the A-side, or maybe a live version of an earlier hit. And the download/streaming era has killed off the concept for good. But cast an eye back further, to the days when an act’s singles were the main event, rather than a plug for their current LP, and the ‘other’ side of a hit single was a source of countless hidden gems.

And besides (see what I did there), many’s the big chart-topping hit that was originally intended as back-up to a song that, for whatever reason, didn’t catch the imagination. ‘Rock Around the Clock’, ‘Maggie May’, ‘I Feel Love’… The list is long, and often surprising. So, let’s kick things off with one of the last bands to recognise the power of a good B-side…

‘Some Might Say’ made number one in April 1995, Oasis’s first chart-topping single. You can read all about that song here. It was only their sixth release, but already the Gallaghers and co. had built a reputation for spoiling their fans with cult classics hidden behind the actual hits. ‘Half the World Away’ on ‘Whatever’, ‘Listen Up’ and ‘Fade Away’ on ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’. But on ‘Some Might Say’, the lead single from their soon to be multi-multi-platinum second album ‘(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?’, Oasis included not one, not two, but three great B-sides. Starting with…

‘Talk Tonight’ is a classic of the Noel-with-an-acoustic guitar genre, a common theme for their B-sides. It was written about a woman in San Francisco, to whom he escaped after a concert went wrong (another common Oasis theme). Oasis at their best produced songs about very specific moments – visiting a park with a woman you barely know – that feel very universal. Everyone has some absent friend with whom they would like to talk tonight.

‘Acquiesce’ meanwhile is Oasis with a capital OASIS. One of very few tracks on which the brothers share vocal duties: Liam at his sneery best on the verses, Noel stretching his vocal chords on the chorus. Plus, the lyrics speak to their brotherly bond: Because we need each other, We believe in one another… (Noel has claimed that the only reason he sang the chorus was because Liam couldn’t reach the high notes). The moment when the pair collide at the start of the second verse is possibly the best five seconds in Oasis’s entire back-catalogue.

For a famous rock band, the moments in which Oasis let loose and just fucking ROCKED are actually quite few and far between. ‘Headshrinker’ may well be the heaviest song they ever recorded, with ten-tonne weighted chords, and lyrics like Lost in the fog, I’ve been treated like a dog, And I’m outta here… about an unhinged lady-love. Their biggest hits may have long since been lost to bland ubiquity, but gems like this remind us that on their day Oasis could be pretty punk.

Noel Gallagher has long since bemoaned the fact that he used up so many great songs as B-sides, especially after years of fame (and booze and drugs) had blunted his songwriting edge. Stick any of these three featured songs onto ‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants’ and they would instantly be the best tracks on the album. But then again, chucking classics like these away on the one CD single encapsulates the carefree, live-in-the-moment ethos of early Oasis, and of Britpop before it soured, and was a huge part of their appeal.

I hope you enjoyed this first installment in what I hope to make a semi-regular feature. If you have any suggestions for B-sides (to UK #1 singles) that I can feature, please let me know in the comments!